A special thanks to PC Children's Charity who has supported AHC's HACK program with funding for its snack program and culinary arts. Staff have been actively engaged with the children in cooking, assisting the children in the cutting of vegetable and fruits, baking and even some cooking on the stove! View images of the children below.

On September 27th AHC invites its 2018 Tax Clinic volunteers to its monthly staff potluck and presented them certificates of appreciation. Every year during tax season AHC relies on volunteers for its free community tax clinic which runs between January and April every year and served over 1650 clients this year. If you are interested in becoming a tax clinic volunteer email: volunteers@a4hc.ca  with the subject: Tax Clinic Volunteer. View images from the appreciation event below.

The children of the Healthy Active Community Kids (HACK) program exercised their compassion last week by making care packages for the homeless. The children delivered the packages on December 4th, 2018. Each care package included socks, gloves, toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, hand warmers candy cane and a note/picture that was done by the child packing the bag. View images of the kids in action below. 

"Adult Literacy and Skill Development (ALSD) Program held its annual major event – “2018 Celebration of Learning” on Thursday, December 6, 2018 at AHC. Aftab Khan, AHC’s Executive Director, delivered a welcome speech to the audience. As the distinguished guest, Ms. Debbie Clack, Executive Director of Edmonton Community Adult Learning Association (ECALA), one of AHC’s funders, sent her warm greeting to the participants. Around 130 people, including performers, volunteers, students and their families participated in the celebration. The celebration program included the presentation of certificates, learning experience sharing, teaching experience sharing, and multicultural performances -- music, dance, and singing. The celebration also included door prizes, food, and Christmas gifts with Santa Claus for the Children. Over 40 students from AHC's English, Computer, Math classes and Leadership Training program received their certificates.

Students shared their learning experiences at AHC and felt very proud of themselves for the great progress and achievements they have made through participating in ALSD programs. For example, students from our Senior English Class reported that many of them had very little, even zero English when they attended the class in mid-August 2018. Only after more than two months of learning, were they able to speak some simple English sentences. The class even sang an English song at the celebration. Everyone was very impressed by their progress.  Instructors who worked for ALSD program were very happy to see many of their students receive their certificates and make incredible progress and improvement. All the participants and their families enjoyed the celebration tremendously. They reported that this was one of the best events they participated in this year. In particular, they appreciated that AHC invited their families to participate in the event. The children were very happy to receive gifts kindly donated by Santa Anonymous and have the photo with Santa Clause.

AHC appreciated In Motion, MacEwan University, a new student contemporary dance group, who shared a performance for the graduates. People enjoyed their fantastic dance. We also express our sincere thanks to all the volunteers for their great job on the event. Especially, we highly appreciate the Chinese International Student Development Society at the University of Alberta for providing almost 20 volunteers for the event.

In all, ALSD has made great progress in 2018. We first time created a senior English class at AHC this year. The program will also increase a parent English class at Brightview School in early 2019. We believe that 2019 will be a very promising year for the program." - Dr. Yanyu Zhou, ALSD Coordinator

View images from the celebration below.

The AHC Syrian team has been coordinating an Arabic Women Networking & Conversation circle over the last several weeks. On this particular occasion, in addition to networking and sharing their stories, the women also received hand-made quilted blankets from southern Alberta courtesy of Lynn Sutankay and her family. The ladies appreciated the kind gesture of the gift, which served as a friendly sign of welcome from the community and an exchange of "small town Albertan" culture.

Through this program the women share life skills with other immigrant women, empowering newcomer women to understand, adjust and fully participate in their settlement process. They will learn by sharing their experiences and listening to the experiences of other women. This program creates activities based on their interest and what they would like to learn and share with their community.

 
Networking with other women from other communities helps:

·  Develop skills to understand and adjust to how things are done in a new country.

·   To have good communication within family, with neighbours and with other people.

·   Develop self-confidence in talking to people or speaking in a group.

·   Identify personal barriers which can get in the way of success.

·   Learn better ways to change ways of doing tasks.

·   Improve English skills

·   Overcome social isolation and increase social network.

·   Promote interaction and peer support among women participants.

·   Meet new friends; build self-confidence.

·    Learn effective problem-solving techniques.

View images from the event below.

On Saturday, December 15, 2018 AHC held its Annual Winter Celebration (Year-end celebration) event. This year the event saw more than 300 guests, including (volunteers, community partners, clients and their families) gather at the St. John's Cultural Centre to recognize their efforts of our volunteers and community partners throughout the year, while also partaking in the festivities of the season.

This year's theme centered around "surviving winter" and "embracing winter". MEC (Mountain Equipment Coop) was present to talk about different strategies about how to embrace winter, including low-cost winter activities.  Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC) to had all their winter play gear set-up with things like snowshoes and cross country ski boots and skis to try on. Kids were also able to take turns practicing their hockey skills, shooting balls in a net. The Alberta Motor Association set-up a display and table about winter driving. While some of our community partners such as the Syrian Heritage Association of Canada set-up a display to discuss their various initatvies in the community.

The program started at 2pm  with words of welcome from our City Councilor Scott McKeen and MLA David Shepherd. Our Executive Director, Aftab Khan presented a word of recognition for the efforts of our community partners and volunteers this year. Participants were invited to partake in a "winter clothing fashion haul" while being educated on appropriate winter wear.  In addition, there were performances by St. Joseph High School's Improv Team, Sebastian Barrera (guitar and Spanish singing) and then Kaz Curtis from Hip Hop in the Park (with a demonstration/story about how people learn English through hip hop music).

Finally, volunteers and community partners were able to collect their certficates and take a picture with our Executive Director. In all, our celebration was a great success with a very high turnout, much engagement from the community and support from over 100+ volunteers and community partners.

View images from the event below

The Connecting Us All Collaborative met for their first meeting of 2019 at AHC on Tuesday, January 15, 2019. The collaborative would like to mentor and support a youth planning committee to host a 1.5 day Anti-Racism Youth Forum targeted at newcomer youth bringing together 3 levels of government, service agencies, ethnocultural community organization leaders with youth to discuss challenges they face and work towards potential solutions to anti-racism in the  Edmonton Region. The partners in the Collaboration includes the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers, Action for Healthy Communities, The Sierra Leone Association of Alberta, and Multicultural Relations Office of the City of Edmonton.

The forum will take place in May or June 2019. The expected outcomes of this project are:

Ø  Share knowledge and learning about racism issues as they affect youth through panel presentations and community dialogue;

Ø  Learning about cultural and linguistic differences, diversity in places of origin, racism and discrimination experiences from youth who have lived it

Ø  Focus on collaborative and coordinated approaches listening to youth concerns about the various barriers in their lives

Ø  To plan, develop and recommend culturally and linguistically grounded initiatives that resonate with this population, and help address adaptation issues required

Ø  To build the capacity and confidence of youth to be able to provide a leadership role in initiating actions to address and solve racism issues

On Thursday, August 16th, AHC held its 6th annual Diversity Health Fair. We were very honored to have MLA David Shepherd, Edmonton-Centre attend the fair,  behalf of Honorable MP Sarah Hoffman, who sent her regrets due to unforeseen circumstances.

Our Board Chair, Mr. Michael Beard, welcomed Mr. Shepherd and all the Alberta Health Exhibitors. As well, Vice Chair, Mr. Ahmad Dean Shaikh, and Director, Amanda Serra, had a chance to visit all the Exhibitors.  Our Settlement Manager, Ms. Suzana Dumo, Welcomed and thanked all the Health Service Providers and participants for presenting a fundamental part in the day's event.

Rola Chehayeb, the Settlement and Integration Case Management Supervisor, started organizing this event, in April this year, to ensure that it was a success, bringing in, not only more service providers but a wide range of service providers who were first time participants at the health fair. The feedback was all positive from 300+ people of all ages, who had a meaningful and educational engagement.

We must really congratulate the Alberta Health Council and All health & wellness organizations for taking this opportunity to address some health issues that the diverse community has concerns about during this successful 6th Annual Diversity Health Fair. We extend our appreciation to Alberta Health Advisory Council and the Coordinator Maya Atallah’s and her assistance to facilitate some of the Health Service Vendors. As well, we congratulate the AHC team that helped organize the health fair this year for a job well done. The event was well organized, well attended and overall successful.

Important information about preventing chronic diseases, improving the nutritional content of meals especially for school lunches, screening for Diabetes, heart health, among other things were available to the community participants who had the opportunity to interact with the various Health Service booth holders to get answers to any questions they had. This event is a strong reminder of how important personal action is in preventing diseases. This initiative is just the beginning of the process towards addressing health concerns.

We would like to extend our appreciation to our community events supporters: Walmart, REmax, Arctic Chiller Water Company, Radio 88.5FM and Radio 1023now, Cedar Sweets, donations from community members and commitment to extend a hand at every event.

View images from the fair below.

On August 25, 2018. AHC held it's annual Community Soccer Tournament at the McQueen community center & Archbishop MacDonald High School soccer fields. More than 250 players, partners and supporters from different communities participated. Partner agencies were the City of Edmonton, McQueen Community, Archbishop MacDonald School and the Edmonton Food Bank. Listed below are the participants of the day and images from the event.

List of participant teams and winners:

• U10 – (EriCan & Habesha)
• U15 – (Nepalese, Habesha, EriCan, Syrian)
• 16 & up (Nepalese, Syria, Black Lions, Latino Lions)
• Masters (Nepalese & Habesha

Winners Medals:

• U10 – EriCan & Habesha
• U15 – Team Syria 1st, Team Nepalese 2nd, Team EriCan 3rd
• 16 & up – Team Nepalese 1st, Team Latino Lions 2nd, Team Syria 3rd
• Masters – Team Nepalese 1st, Team Habesha 2nd

Trophies:

• U15 – Team Syria
• 16 & up – Team Nepalese
• Top goal scorer – Nepalese player U15 – 5 goals

On Thursday, September 13, 2018 AHC held its semi-annual Employer Connections Event (previously known as the Job Fair). Over 130 participants gathered at Bonnie Doon Shopping Centre to visit the booths of the employers, attend employment information sessions, seek resume and job application help. View images of the event below.

On Thursday, October 18, Dr. Bashair Ibrahim discussed the issues and challenges being now in a western country. Refugees face not only challenges related to renegotiating their status and roles within the family but also a range of challenges which prevent them from successfully adjusting to and integrating into a new country, thus exacerbating their difficult living conditions and the subsequent impacts on their family relationship. The challenges that refugee families face in resettlement in a new country are complex and various.  She shared how important it us to understand their various challenges and how these might negatively affect them if not dealt with properly. View the images below.